Hotel Del Among Those That Changed : The Grand Old Resort Hotels Turn to Convention Clientele to Survive

Robert Conte, a transplanted Californian who is the official historian of The Greenbrier resort in White Sulphur Springs, W.Va., views San Diego’s 100-year-old Hotel del Coronado as “the quintessential fanciful hotel.”

” . . . I would just hate to see that building go,” said Conte, who has spent the past nine years chronicling the 210-year-old Greenbrier. “It’s just a very unique and special place.”

But 30 years ago, the Victorian-style, ocean-front Del Coronado seemed unlikely to survive long enough to celebrate the star-studded centennial bash held for it last weekend.

When current owner M. Larry Lawrence and his wife, Jeanne, purchased the Del--as it is widely known--in 1963, “there was no electricity in many places, no water above the second floor,” Lawrence said. “It was infested with termites and rats.”

Like many fabled resorts, the Del had fallen into disrepair, a victim of neglect and the changing tastes of the traveling public.

The Lawrences, the hotel’s sixth owners, largely restored the Del’s luster during a $40-million, top-to-bottom refurbishment that included new foundations, modern plumbing and heating, new electrical wiring and an $8-million fire-alarm system--a must for the original all-wood building.

High Society Hideaway

Those renovations--and 300 modern suites that have since been added--have helped transform the Del into a hotel that now gets half its business from business travelers. That contrasts with the days when the hotel served as an exclusive hideaway for high society.

Grand resorts that have remained viable over the years have done so largely because they have added the amenities and services demanded by the nation’s business and convention travelers, according to Joseph Kordsmeier, a Carmel-based consultant for the hotel industry.

Resort operators made their first real bid for business and convention traffic shortly after World War II, according to historian Conte. That was when hotel executives recognized they needed corporate guests who could afford to support the resorts’ golf courses, spas, tennis courts, grand ballrooms and restaurants.

“I often refer to these resorts as the ultimate three-martini lunch,” one hotel executive quipped. “And whenever I start to hear talk about tax-law reform, I flinch.”

But many of the nation’s exclusive hotels faded away after unsuccessfully clinging to their heritages as high-society resorts, Conte said.

“If you look back at the history of the gorgeous hotels, most were individually or family-owned, and many got to the state where they coasted,” Kordsmeier said. “But even the most grand are vulnerable to complacency, and even the old crowd will leave if there’s a bad attitude or bad service.

“In some ways,” said Conte, “the Greenbrier is lucky” that it was owned by the Chesapeake & Ohio railroad company, now part of Richmond, Va.-based CSX Corp. “There are other grand resorts that didn’t have a white knight willing to spend money needed to make improvements, and those places have been ghost towns ever since.”

Grand Made Decision

At the Grand Hotel on Michigan’s Mackinac Island, owner Stewart Woodfill, a former desk clerk who became first general manager and then owner during a four-year span in the 1920s, “saw the handwriting on the wall shortly after the war,” according to Paul Brown, vice president of marketing for the hotel. “His peers said he was crazy, but Mr. Woodfill went ahead and went after the convention business.”

Today, 65% of the business at the 286-room hotel is group-related, and half the hotel’s guests are members of conventions or conferences.

That story line has been repeated at other resorts.

“The Broadmoor (in Colorado Springs, Colo.) started in 1918 as a very socially oriented resort,” according to spokeswoman Mary Lee Heinz. “But in later years, we’ve run very heavily toward conventions.” The Broadmoor added a convention center during the early 1980s in response to a growing demand for meeting space.

The Greenbrier’s evolution into a conference and convention resort began in 1948, when the resort reopened after being pressed into wartime service as an Army hospital.

The hotel manager--anticipating a return to business as usual--poured money into the resort’s leisure facilities. Consequently, the Greenbrier’s first bow to business travel--a new wing filled with meeting rooms--was not made until 1954.

During the past three years, the Greenbrier has poured $20 million into a renovation that has included new electric and water lines, a 25,000-square-foot spa and another wing of business conference rooms.

By last year, nearly 70% of the Greenbrier’s guests were there for business meetings and conventions.

Old-line resorts and hotels are adding “the electronic doodahs that the convention guests want because all of the newer, more modern meeting resorts have the electronic doodahs,” Conte said.

But the classic resorts and hotels have been careful to craft expansions that complement their existing architecture.

The Greenbrier, known for its Georgian architecture and bucolic setting in the Allegheny Mountains, recently tried to shield its guests from some of the mess and disorder of construction work by ordering bricklayers to quickly paint over newly laid bricks. The hotel prides itself on the fact that close examination is needed to determine which rooms are part of the 70-year-old main building and which are in newer wings.

$10-Million Renovation

Colorado Springs’ swank Broadmoor, which celebrates its 70th anniversary this year, is in the middle of a five-year, $10-million renovation that will “allow us to maintain the elegance and the old atmosphere while allowing us to update the amenities,” according to spokeswoman Heinz.

The Grand in Michigan, which celebrated its centennial July 10, has spent $10 million during the past five years in order to “make us a 1980s version of a luxury resort hotel from an earlier era,” according to Brown, the marketing vice president. “But we’re not streamlining; we’re spending money to add comfort and luxury.”

The Del Coronado was originally a 399-room hotel, and Lawrence, even with the addition of the 300 new suites, hopes to eventually expand further. But construction plans have been derailed by stiff opposition from the Del’s residential neighbors, government bodies and the nearby North Island Naval Air Station.

Regardless of future construction, the red roof that rises above the grand lobby of the Del will continue to dominate the hotel, which bills itself as the only one in the country that is also a national monument.

The old resorts cling to their heritages in part because they still serve as high-priced havens for members of high society.

That is in keeping with their beginnings as properties that often were built by railroad and steamship lines that considered “destination resorts” natural extensions of their travel businesses.

The Greenbrier once served as a deluxe stopover for wealthy society families--many of whom traveled in private rail cars to vacation spots in Palm Beach, Fla., and Newport, R.I.

The Grand was built “in an era when people left Chicago and St. Louis for the northern climes during the hot summer months,” Brown said. “But all of that changed after World War II because air conditioning meant you didn’t have to leave the city any more to escape the heat.”

Transportation patterns also changed after World War II, with automobiles and airplanes replacing trains. With that change, the resorts gradually lost their hold on high society, Conte said.

But as they have turned to business people for an increasingly large part of their profits, they have taken great pains to retain their images as romantic hideaways. Earlier this month, the Michigan Chamber of Commerce voted the Grand Hotel the “most romantic spot” in Michigan, Brown said.

‘The Romantic Past’

“There are people out there who want the romantic past that (these hotels) can offer,” said consultant Kordsmeier. “They’re looking for a romantic, getaway kind of place, somewhere they can step back in time to get a marvelous warm feeling.”

The hotels recognize that guests want that ambiance.

Until just a few years ago, the Grand politely demanded that conventioneers not wear name tags or affix corporate banners to the walls of meeting rooms. Neither the Greenbrier nor the Grand allows convention sign-up desks in its stately lobby.

In another bow to the past, both the Grand and the Greenbrier require male guests to wear coats and ties after 6 p.m. And the Grand, a popular tourist attraction, has tried to restrict casual entry by charging a $3 fee for day visitors who want a quick peek at the inside of the hotel.

However, the resorts can’t always keep time from intruding. Brown said a Hollywood movie company eventually used the Grand as the site for a turn-of-the-century movie because the San Diego skyline is now visible from the Del. There is no such problem at the Grand, which sits on an island that is mostly state parkland and on which automobiles are not allowed.

A hotel’s links to the past are important for guests who have been “regulars” for decades, according to hotel executives.

“These are the sort of people who will get terribly upset if you move the furniture two feet to the left,” said Howard P. (Bud) James, a former chairman of Sheraton Corp. “They start demanding to know what you’ve done to ‘their’ room.”

When La Valencia, a 62-year-old hotel with a spectacular view of La Jolla Cove, recently spent $10 million to redecorate its rooms, management took great care not to offend a long list of guests who have been returning to La Jolla for as many as 50 years.

La Valencia’s owners settled on a color scheme and new oak paneling that they hoped was bright enough to appeal to younger corporate executives but conservative enough to not alienate the old-timers.

The grand resorts and hotels also recognize that a “warm feeling” and an impressive past are not enough to attract and keep business.

At the Del, which enjoys San Diego County’s highest year-round occupancy rates, about 40% of the hotel’s guests are visitors who can be classified as “regulars,” said James, who now operates La Jolla-based Global Hospitality, which runs the nearby La Costa Hotel and Spa for a Japanese firm.

Continued Success

“With 40% of the hotel full, you’ve only got to fill 60%, and that makes it a lot easier,” he said, adding that the key to the continued success of the grand resorts continues to be service.

“At the Del and the Broadmoor, the employees know you by name, and they know how to take care of the customer,” James said.

Historian Conte said the old resorts pride themselves on “having employees who stay put in what is known as a transitory business.”

The grand resorts are increasingly turning to modern marketing and advertising to keep their rooms filled. La Valencia and the Grand only recently created full-time marketing and sales departments--one more indication of how competitive the resort business has grown.

“This end of the (convention and conference) business has always been a competitive market, but the competition has exploded in the past 10 years,” said Brown, who worked for two national hotel chains before joining the Grand. “The hotel business has been crazy during the past few years, and it probably took old resorts like us the longest to catch up with the rest of the world.”

That changing world is obvious in San Diego, where the Del competes against a growing number of chain-operated meeting and convention hotels. The competition includes a nearby $58-million, 300-room Meridien Hotel that will open in May. And, just across San Diego Bay, Marriott recently took over a twin-tower complex with nearly 1,000 rooms.

Privately held resorts such as the Del and the Grand that are not part of chains “have to rely upon extremely high occupancy rates, because we don’t have other hotels to pick up the slack,” Brown said.

“We’re an expensive hotel to visit, but we’re also an expensive hotel to maintain,” he said. “Consequently, our profit margin is a lot lower than the industry average.”